Everyone is throwing their forces into battle: LFI leader Jean-Luc Mélenchon will be at a meeting on Wednesday in Paris with the Nupes alliance on the left, and Marine Le Pen (RN) in Hénin-Beaumont (Pas-de-Calais) on Sunday. They will roll out their proposals in the face of soaring prices, which have become the number one concern.
While Emmanuel Macron has so far been rather withdrawn, Prime Minister Elisabeth Borne will get involved as majority leader: Monday at the end of the day, she will be in video with all the candidates Together!, then will have a meeting of work with the main actors of the campaign.
The three blocks from the April presidential election face each other, but with different strategies: “catch-all” for the presidential majority, Nupes alliance on the left, every man for himself on the far right.
Others intend to disturb this game, like certain socialists ulcerated by the OPA of Jean-Luc Mélenchon on this New popular ecological and social union.
The Republicans are counting on their side on their local roots to ward off a new shipwreck after that of the presidential election.
Nearly 6,300 candidates are in the running for 577 seats, or 20% less than in 2017, due in particular to the agreement on the left.
The number of candidates is always higher than that of female candidates (55.8% against 44.2%). The second round will tell whether the record number of women elected to parliament in 2017 (39%) will be equaled or not.
– Settlement for the majority –
According to several polls, the presidential majority and the Nupes would be neck and neck in voice (26-28%), ahead of the RN (21-23%), LR (9%-11%) and Reconquest! of Eric Zemmour (5-6%).
But due to the voting method and the geographical concentration of LFI scores, the presidential camp and its pillars LREM, MoDem and Horizons would keep a majority of 290 to 330 seats, even if this tends to narrow over the weeks, brushing the threshold of an absolute majority (289).
The Nupes would have 160 to 195 seats, the RN between 20 and 65. LR would see its parliamentary group of a hundred deputies melt between 20 and 65 seats.
A clear victory for the Macronists would give the Head of State a free hand in the National Assembly for five more years. A narrow victory would expose him to strong internal turbulence.
A relative majority would force him to navigate on sight with alliances of circumstance, possibly with certain LRs but difficult to envisage with a left dominated by LFI or with the RN.
The mobilization of voters remains a key issue, after the legislative elections of 2017 where less than one in two voters had moved.
The presidential camp is counting on the presence of a woman at Matignon for the first time in thirty years to send a strong signal of change and progress.
But the accusations of rape targeting the Minister of Solidarity, Damien Abad (ex-LR), parasitized the first days of the new government.
Fourteen current ministers – Gérald Darmanin, Gabriel Attal … – and several outgoing, including Jean-Michel Blanquer, are embarking on this election, as well as the first of them, Elisabeth Borne, in the running in Calvados. With a sword of Damocles: they will have to resign in case of failure.
LFI and its allies are counting on a ripple effect from Nupes. Jean-Luc Mélenchon sees himself as Prime Minister of cohabitation carried by an electoral tidal wave, but he is not seeking re-election in Marseille.
On the far right, Marine Le Pen hopes that the constitution of a parliamentary group – a first for her party since 1986 – coupled with her 41.5% of the votes in the presidential final, will allow her to impose herself as the first opponent from France.
Among supporters of Eric Zemmour, the hopes of the slightest seat are slim, for lack of agreement with the RN.
Barely installed, the new Assembly will have its work cut out for it, with two bills to adopt to respond to the difficulties of purchasing power.
